Three of a Kind
by Redrangerpower
Summary: They are three of a kind, arranged into a larger triangle. But where two are mere outlines of light, one of them is full and glows like a tiny sun. The man shrugs easily, “It means destiny. Or fate. I still haven’t really decided yet.” *One-shot*


**Three of a Kind**

Celebration is the order of the evening on the night that Kaim decides to visit Tosca. The harvest has been particularly fruitful this year, and the mayor is now a grandfather, so there is plenty of reason for merriment. Tolty's inn is packed with townspeople, all celebrating in their own ways; even the children have been allowed inside, and they trade stories and laugh.

Kaim is pleased to see that the village has been well in his absence. Though his family was gone but briefly, the terrible thought still roams in the rear of his mind that one day he may return to a burnt husk rather than a village.

It had happened before. More than once.

Kaim looks around and finds most of the chairs are taken. But, one table is curiously devoid of patrons. Only one man in a worn brown cloak sits there, quietly sipping from a mug.

The irony of the image is not lost on Kaim, who wonders how many times he's been the one sitting all alone on a festive evening.

In a move that would no doubt shock most who have known him, Kaim strides to the lonely table and takes a seat. The immortal decides that his recent journey must have changed him more than he had expected.

"Do you mind?" Kaim asks, ready to place himself elsewhere if the stranger doesn't want company.

The hood turns to him slightly, and a pair of cobalt eyes look at him in surprise.

"No, not really." The voice is male, seemingly young, and while curious, it is also friendly. "Didn't think anybody but the kids would be talking to me."

"Why is that?"

The man chuckles, "I look like a traveler, so I must have 'all sorts of interesting stories about monsters and stuff!'"

Kaim smiles faintly at the impersonation of an overly exuberant and inquisitive child. He decides to stay.

"And are you?"

The man nods and takes another drag from his mug.

"I get around. I'm going to visit Gohtza before I leave."

Kaim raises a brow out the curious undertones of this statement.

"Before you leave?"

The man smiles again and shrugs a shoulder. "I do have to move on soon. _She_ likes to keep me busy when I'm not home."

"Wife?"

This makes the man laugh loudly, though the sound is largely lost in the jovial sounds of the revelry.

"In a very odd way, that is not too far off. She has been in my life for a good while now."

Kaim nods without truly understanding, then something catches his eyes. The stranger's left hand is casually resting on the table, and is clearly covered in a well-crafted leather glove. This does not strike Kaim as odd, because the man did admit to being a traveler.

And travelers often found themselves in the role of warrior as well, if the sword and shield upon his back were not proof enough.

What the immortal finds truly curious is the marking that seems to have appeared out of thin air upon the glove: triangles, glowing with a rich, golden light that most would associate with divinity. Gray-blue eyes turn upwards, and Kaim gives the man a questioning stare. The man notices this, glances at his hand, then, sheepishly, back at Kaim.

"Ah, sorry. They tend to do that when somebody or something important is near by."

"Is it a tattoo?"

The man grins and rubs the back of his neck. "Of a sort. It's actually on my hand, not my glove. I've seen enough of this place to know that magic is nothing unique here, so I'd hoped it wouldn't make too much of a fuss."

Kaim thinks on this for a moment; such things tend to have a meaning, especially when magic is involved. He knows of magic very well –both from innumerable personal experience and the accounts of comrades- and for a marking to shine through as sturdy a fabric as a warrior's glove, it must be extremely powerful. Kaim's instincts begin to filter back into his mind and his hands tense.

"What do they mean?" he asks, keeping his tone neutral but allowing an edge into it.

Both glance back down at the potentially offending markings on the stranger's hand.

They are three of a kind, arranged into a larger triangle. But where two are mere outlines of light, one of them is full and glows like a tiny sun. The man shrugs easily, "It means destiny. Or fate. I still haven't really decided yet."

"And what do you plan to do with them?" Kaim inquires, still cautious.

"I only really have the one," the man corrects with a grin, and blows a few strands of wheat-colored hair out of his face. "And I plan to use it as I always have: for the good of others."

Kaim takes this in, the honest tone in the man's voice and the ease with which he meets the immortal's eyes. Kaim relaxes back into his chair, and realizes that he had been ready to attack the stranger. The stranger seems to have noticed this as well, and he too seems to ease when the immortal does.

"It's why I'm here, after all," the stranger says, and his eyes leave Kaim to take in the crowd. "Though, it seems I wasn't really needed here after all. She has been overzealous, from time to time."

Kaim acknowledges this with a soft hum and recalls Gongora and his plots. "Yes, the threat to this place has been defeated."

The man glances at Kaim again and smiles wryly. "Crazy man with a love of magic, yes?"

Kaim actually finds himself chuckling at the absurd accuracy of this statement.

"Yes."

"Thought so; seems to be the most popular threat to the worlds these days. You fought him?"

The immortal sobers immediately and stares at the stranger again. The Tower of Mirrors had not been very well known, and the fact that it was a doorway to another world, even less so.

"_Worlds_?" Kaim asks, deciding to feign ignorance. "There is more than one?"

The stranger seems not to mind Kaim dodging his question and simply rolls his eyes in an amused sort of way.

"Don't play dumb. I've traveled around enough to spot a lie: you already know that there is more than this one."

Kaim's eyes harden for a moment, but he cannot deny that his bluff has been called. The stranger is correct: he can spot a lie very well.

"Yes, I do know of other worlds. I'm from one."

This gets the stranger's attention and he laughs again. It is lively, friendly and with more empathy that Kaim expects.

"I must admit, I hadn't expected that," he says. "But it takes all sorts I suppose."

The stranger holds his hand up and examines the glowing markings with an expression of recently renewed curiosity.

"It hasn't been wrong yet, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It was telling me you weren't quite the same as the others around here."

There is a pause as both men look out on the crowd.

"What are they?" Kaim decides to ask, a strange feeling of understanding welling up within his chest.

"A holy relic from my world."

Kaim hums softly again and regards the golden light of the markings. "Then you are from the world beyond the mirrors? The World of Light?"

"Nope," the man replies cheerfully, as though this is nothing more interesting than the day's weather. "There are more worlds than this one and that, hundreds more."

Kaim soaks this in. This would be the source of the curious feelings of sympathy, then; a warrior also from another world, fighting for places that did not birth him.

It could simply be his imagination, but something tells Kaim that this man could understand him better than anybody else who had ever met him. His warrior nature has never been something that he could truly share with others, including the other immortals. They had seen battle yes, but they were not soldiers; they were a regent, a scholar and a pirate. Only Seth could have even begun to understand his never ending journey of battlefields, death and war.

And she is gone.

How could any soldier even begin to compare to a man who has not only lived, but fought, killed and died for a thousand years? But this stranger has an aura about him, one that the immortal Kaim can recognize easily. Age. Despite looking no older that twenty summers, Kaim is certain that this man is far older than he appears.

That there is someone else who could, perhaps, empathize with him on a true level again, is a strange comfort that Kaim can't fully put into words.

"You've got quite a while to live yet, so maybe you'll see some of them too," the stranger says suddenly.

Kaim gives him another questioning look. The stranger simply grins at him, like an old friend revisiting some mutually known truth.

"Kids told me. Apparently, not only are you immortal, you're a hero who can fend off a dragon just by glowering at it."

The immortal finds a faint smile that he can return to the stranger, though his mind is aflame. _He knows. _Thinks Kaim. _He knows, and he doesn't seem to mind. _

"They do like to talk, don't they?"

"Children always do," the stranger agrees and drinks from his mug. "My sworn sister is like that, always pestering me for stories. You'd think immortality would calm her down a little. She says the exact same thing to me, though, so I guess it goes both ways."

"You're an immortal?" Kaim asks, wanting to confirm what his instincts tell him. At the same time, his mind tries to wrap itself around the irony of the conversation: was this how the many mortals over the years had felt when they had spoken to Kaim?

He knows from years of experience: anybody else would label the stranger a lunatic, but Kaim's long life has gifted him with a talent for reading people.

The stranger nods and replies, "Yes, in a way." Kaim knows immediately: this man is no lunatic.

In fact, he appears so completely honest that Kaim is fascinated. This man is exactly what he says he is, and that odd feeling of camaraderie returns to Kaim's heart with renewed vigor.

"I get brought back by her every once in a while when I'm needed," the man says, and then looks thoughtful. "Been doing it for about, oh, a millennium I think. Maybe a shade longer."

"So you have died?"

"Oh, plenty of times," the stranger says pleasantly. "Still don't care much for it, though."

Kaim allows a small chuckle at this statement, even though the subject weighs on his mind. Death is normally a subject spoken of in somber and grieving tones, but this man seems none too bothered by the idea that he has died multiple times. When Kaim compares himself and the others from the World of Light to this man, it seems such a strange way for an immortal to act.

The stranger suddenly stands and stretches his arms.

"Sorry to cut this short," he says politely. "But I need to get back on the road."

"Do you think you'll come back to this world?" Kaim asks, and again quietly reels at the complete reversal of the situation he'd grown accustomed to. Normally he is the ancient, trail worn wanderer, and the other person the curious local.

_When had those old roles been reversed?_

The stranger thinks on this for a moment.

"Maybe, who knows?"

The stranger holds out a hand. "Until next time, then, Mister…" he trails off at this.

Kaim grasps the man's hand and shakes it. "Kaim."

The stranger smiles and nods. "Kaim," he repeats. "My name is Link."

More than a century passes for Kaim. He finds himself once more in Tosca and once more in Tolty's Inn and Tavern. The inn has stayed in the family, and the name has been kept out of respect for its founder. It is another jovial evening, where the harvest has been good, and a man has just become a grandfather. As Kaim enters and scans the crowd, a familiar figure catches his eye, sitting near the back and quietly sipping from a mug.

His hood is down, showing some differences: his eyes are a much lighter blue this time, and his hair is more strawberry blond than wheat gold. But he remains remarkably unchanged from how he looked before, as though he is simply the newest in a line of men from the same template, each slightly different but all fundamentally the same. A peculiar cone-shaped green cap rests on his head, the point of it bowing down the touch the man's shoulders. The hem of the cap covers part of his ears.

Link notices the immortal, and waves with a knowing smile.

Kaim nods in return, and takes a seat next to his fellow immortal.

"Farore gave me some time off after that demon sword business," Link says with a shrug.

Kaim glances at Link's left glove: the triangles are still there. Still three of a kind. But they glow only faintly for now. Waiting to flare up again when the man is summoned.

"I'm still 'on call' though," Link explains with a cheerful grin that belies incomprehensible age with the exuberance of eternal youth.

Kaim finds it in himself to smile back, and though his is more quiet and worn, the two seem to share an understanding.

It seems that even after a thousand years of life on this world, it can still surprise even an immortal.

End

* * *

Not sure what possessed me to think this up, but it meshed so well in my head. This was my first try at writing in the same style as the Dreams. Hopefully it was alright. Please R&R.

Disclaimer: Oh yes, I own nothing here but the actual story idea. Everything else belongs to Mistwalker, Microsoft, Namco, and Nintendo.


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